FedEx Office to place 500 locations inside Walmart's U.S. stores

FedEx Office, a unit of Memphis-based FedEx Corp., and Walmart Inc., said today they have agreed for FedEx Office to place 500 of its locations inside a number of Walmart's U.S. stores over the next two years.

The announcement comes after the completion of a pilot program spanning 47 locations within Bentonville, Ark.-based Walmart's stores in six states.

Besides providing access to packing, shipping, and printing services, the locations will serve as package drop-off points where shipments will be held for up to five business days, FedEx Office said.

The FedEx Office-Walmart rollout is part of a program called "FedEx OnSit" that calls for a nationwide expansion of the FedEx retail channel, or locations that will offer FedEx services. The additional locations through Walmart will increase the size of FedEx Office's national network by 25 percent, the Plano, Texas-based company said.

FedEx and its chief rival, Atlanta-based UPS, have implemented retail access strategies designed to reduce the number of unsuccessful deliveries, improve package density across their networks, and broaden options for consumers and small businesses to use their services, consultancy The Colography Group Inc. said today. Besides Walmart, FedEx has retail access locations in nine supermarkets and drug store chains like Walgreens Inc., according to Colography data.